Music has always been an essential part of David Lynch’s films, from his contextualizing of Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” as a pervert’s anthem to the Angelo Badalamenti soundscapes that frequent his films. Being a director that aims for titillating the senses rather than constructing a narrative, music has always been an essential component to a mood that has since been coined as “Lynchian.” In November 2011 David released his debut album, Crazy Clown Time—15 tracks with a bluesy-electronic feel meandering over digitalized vocals. Rarely with choruses, always creepy over catchy, these songs felt more like a soundtrack to a movie never made than a standalone piece. This week Lynch released a music video to the song “Crazy Clown Time,” the first widely distributed directorial work he has done since the feature film Inland Empire in 2006. It’s seven minutes of weird—strobe lights and fires, primal violence, vomit, all the standard Lychian fare—which as typical as it sounds for a Lynch fan, actually suggests a new kind of relationship toward music.
The video (featured below) captures some sort of backyard cookout of debauchery, staring a jock, blocked out nipples, and Dali’s mustache. Lynch is the narrator, literally, as he speaks into a microphone and describes exactly what’s going on. When David says, ‘Danny spit on Suzie,’ well… we are watching Danny spit on Suzie. Using music as a guide, as a literal interpretation, certainly puts the song more in the forefront; however, it somehow fragments the complexity that commonly occurs in Lynchian madness. Usually the music adds to some his unspoken themes, whether the sexual repression of 50’s pop or the embracement of darkness through blues, but here the visual is simply a mirror of the song, the song a mirror of the visual. Perhaps his films of the past were so strong because the medium gave him enough structure that his art could flourish without becoming unhinged. Or perhaps Lynch in his old age is less interested in trying to channel his existential motifs as much as he wants to play in the studio. Either way, it’s fucked-up seven minutes; give it a watch.
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